How a Golf Trip Became a Career

 

Davy Hoffman Bio

Living near a golf course has its advantages and for Davy Hoffman growing up in Ohio, the advantages came year round; with golf all summer, football behind number four green in the fall, and sledding and ice-skating during winter.

Once golf is in your blood it can become an obsession and for Davy, the obsession took an interesting turn during a golf holiday in Honolulu. A friend introduced him to Bert Peterka, owner of Custom Golf on S. King Street, where Davy had a set of custom golf clubs made. That was the first of many sets of custom clubs Davy would play with, and all of the rest he would build himself.

Back in Santa Monica, Davy complemented his interest in golf swing instruction by studying how to make golf clubs. He read everything he could get his hands on and talked to every knowledgeable club maker he could find. Stan Thompson, who had great success with the Ginty woods and irons he designed, took Davy under his wing and turned him loose in the factory with veteran club makers.

Not the Best Business Model

Friends began bringing clubs to Davy for opinions, repairs, and alterations, which he gladly provided. Then one day while ordering supplies, it occurred to him that a philanthropic golf shop was probably not the best business model. So, he converted a commercial storefront into a retail golf shop, hung out his shingle, and Davy Golf was established in 1983.

Based on a philosophy to under-promise and over-deliver, Davy gained a reputation for knowledgeable service and quality craftsmanship. Davy Golf catered to club pros, a few tour pros, and as word spread through the entertainment industry, a lot of instantly recognizable faces and showbiz names from the music, television, and motion picture industries.

While he is reluctant to drop names because the celebrities came as customers, not pitchmen, there is one anecdote he is willing to share because it became a matter of public record in Japan’s most popular golf magazine when they published a feature story on Davy, calling him the ‘Crocodile Dundee of golf.’

‘Crocodile Dundee of Golf’

Paul Hogan, the shrimp on the barbie star of Crocodile Dundee popped in at Davy Golf one afternoon and was selecting some gifts for his avid golfer son back in Australia. One of the gifts he had in mind was a conventional putter.

“How much is this putter, mate?” He held it up in front of him.

“That’s not a putter, mate,” Davy mocked the famous line from Hogan’s movie and held up a 48-inch Long John, “This is a putter.”

“It was all in good fun,” Davy recounted, “and Mr. Hogan, if his laughter was any indication, fully enjoyed the repartee.”

PGA Tour

Wynn Reichert, a successful performer of live music and comedy, found his way into Davy Golf one day when he was a struggling actor with a tour player’s swing. Wynn had played at University of Houston with Fred Couples, and when February rolled around, he and Davy drove ten minutes up the hill to Riviera on a Tuesday for practice rounds at the Los Angeles Open.

It was there that Wynn introduced Davy to Lew Gibson, out of Conroe, Texas, the independent club maker authorized by the PGA Tour to have access to park his small tour van beside the driving ranges at tour stops and cater to the needs of the professionals playing in the events. Never mind the shiny factory vans from all the major golf brands, the tour pros nearly all beat a path straight to Lew to have their club work done.

Lew and Davy became good friends and every year thereafter, Lew would ring in to Davy Golf from somewhere out on the road and rattle off a list of shafts and supplies he needed for the L.A. Open, which list Davy would gladly oblige. As Lew got older, Davy would spend most of the Opens up there helping Lew take care of the world’s greatest golfers.

Another Passion

Apart from decades of fitting golfers, building custom golf clubs, and teaching golf, Davy’s other passion has always been writing. He wrote an open letter to an editor in New York that unexpectedly resulted in a writing assignment, which led to another and so on until he earned the title of contributing editor.

When the publisher of that magazine moved to another company to publish a travel magazine, he contracted Davy Hoffman to go to exotic golf destinations and write golf travel and golf vacations features. With good help on staff and things going quite well at Davy Golf, it was not hard for him to get away.

A call from a New York editor Davy had met along the way led to a contract to write a golf book.

“That’s all they knew. They wanted a golf book,” Davy laughed, and they wanted him to create a concept and overall design, and write the book, which he did, with editorial support by Matthew Lands. America’s Greatest Golf Courses features 52 golf courses in North America with histories, descriptions, and photos for each course. It has sold through five printings.

There is more to the Davy Golf story.
• Like the largest single sale of $31,863 to one customer
• Getting a couple of lawyers that had never been on a golf course ready for their firm’s golf outing in five lessons
• How Davy handled the only two bad checks he ever received
• The no-yip putter Davy helped create, which Arnold Palmer used in a tournament
• How Davy broke his neck on a golf course
• The golf tours and golf vacation packages he has created
• How Davy first met astrology map guru Barry D. Cowger and Golfstrology evolved.

However at Davy’s request, these anecdotes and many more are itemized separately